*" 


CHARLES  PICKERING  BOWDITCH 

AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGY  has  lost  one  of  its  greatest 
patrons  in  the  death  of  Charles  P.  Bowditch,  which  occurred 
on  June  I,  1921.  He  was  born  in  Boston,  September  30, 
1842,  the  son  of  Jonathan  Ingersoll  Bowditch  and  Lucy  O.  Nichols 
and  the  grandson  of  Nathaniel  Bowditch.  He  received  the  A.B. 
degree  from  Harvard  College  in  1863  and  the  A.M.  degree  three 
years  later.  He  married  Cornelia  L.  Rockwell  on  June  7,  1866. 
She  and  four  children  survive  him.  He  served  in  the  Civil  War  as 
2d  Lieutenant,  1st  Lieutenant,  and  Captain  of  the  55th  Massa- 
chusetts Volunteer  Infantry  and  as  Captain  of  the  5th  Massachu- 
setts Volunteer  Cavalry. 

Mr.  Bowditch  was  a  man  of  broad  interests  as  his  membership 
in  various  learned  societies  shows.  He  was  elected  a  member  of 
the  American  Academy  of  Arts  and  Sciences  in  1892  and  was  its 
Treasurer  from  1905  to  1915  and  President  from  1917  to  1919. 
He  was  also  a  member  of  the  Boston  Society  of  Natural  History, 
the  American  Antiquarian  Society,  and  the  American  Geographical 
Society.  His  anthropological  interests  appear  in  his  membership 
in  the  following  societies:  American  Anthropological  Association, 
American  Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Science,  Archaeo- 
logical Institute  of  America,  International  Congress  of  Americanists, 
and  the  Societe  des  Americanistes  de  Paris.  His  historical-genea- 
logical interests  are  shown  in  his  membership  in  the  Massachusetts 
Historical  Society,  the  Bostonian  Society,  the  Colonial  Society  of 
Massachusetts,  and  the  New  England  Historical-Genealogical 
Society.  He  was  the  author  of  the  Pickering  Genealogy. 

For  many  years  he  took  a  keen  delight  in  the  Bacon-Shakespeare 
controversary  and  was  the  author  of  Bacon's  Connection  with  the 
First  Folio  of  Shakespeare. 

As  a  man  of  affairs  in  Boston,  Mr.  Bowditch  was  an  officer  in 
many  corporations  and  numerous  benevolent  enterprises.  His 

23  353 


354  AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGIST  [N.  s.,  23,  1921 

list  of  charities  was  a  long  one.  He  was  the  author  of  the  History 
of  the  Trustees  of  the  Charity  of  Edward  Hopkins. 

After  a  pleasure  trip  to  southern  Mexico  and  Yucatan,  in  1888, 
Mr.  Bowditch's  main  interest,  outside  that  of  his  business  as  trustee, 
became  centered  in  Maya  antiquities.  This  enthusiasm  for  a 
region  up  to  that  time  neglected  and  practically  unknown  resulted 
in  establishing  an  entirely  new  field  in  American  Anthropology. 

Mr.  Bowditch's  connection  with  the  Peabody  Museum  of 
Harvard  University  was  a  long  and  a  close  one.  From  1888,  when 
the  records  show  he  presented  his  first  gift  to  the  Museum,  up  to 
the  time  of  his  death,  he  was  its  greatest  benefactor.  In  1894  he 
was  elected  a  trustee  of  the  Museum  and  he  served  on  the  Faculty 
of  this  institution  continuously  from  that  time  onward,  rarely 
missing  a  meeting  and  always  taking  a  most  active  part  in  the 
deliberations  of  that  body. 

In  1891  the  Museum  sent  its  first  expedition  to  Central  America. 
With  the  exception  of  only  a  few  years  this  expedition  has  been  an 
annual  occurrence  up  to  the  present  time.  Mr.  Bowditch  planned 
and  provided  for  these  trips  with  little  outside  aid.  The  early 
work  of  Gordon,  Saville,  and  Owens  in  Copan  and  the  Uloa  Valley, 
the  discoveries  of  Maler  on  the  Usumacinta  River  and  Peten, 
the  long  continued  investigations  of  Thompson  in  Yucatan  and 
especially  in  the  Cenote  of  Chichen  Itza,  the  expeditions  of  Tozzer, 
Merwin,  and  Hay  in  British  Honduras  and  northern  Guatemala,  of 
Lothrop  in  Honduras,  the  second  expedition  of  Morley  in  Yucatan, 
and  the  work  of  Spinden  in  southern  Yucatan  are  the  most  im- 
portant activities  in  this  line.  A  very  large  number  of  hitherto 
unknown  ruined  sites  were  disclosed  and  a  numerous  addition  to 
the  wealth  of  hieroglyphic  inscriptions  resulted. 

There  is  hardly  a  man  now  working  in  the  Central  American 
field  today  who  was  not  directly  beholden  at  some  time  in  his  career 
to  Mr.  Bowditch  for  encouragement  and  aid. 

His  interest  in  sending  out  expedition  after  expedition  has  re- 
sulted in  a  large  accession  to  the  collections  of  the  Museum.  Among 
the  most  important  of  these  are:  the  large  number  of  original  stone 
carvings  from  Copan  as  the  result  of  a  concession  from  Honduras 


CHARLES   PICKERING   BO WD ITCH  355 

in  1891  and  continuing  for  ten  years,  molds  and  casts  of  the  principal 
stelae  and  altars  from  Copan  and  Quirigua,  lintels  and  stelae  from 
Yaxchilan  and  Piedras  Negras,  and  many  of  the  sculptured  stones 
from  Chichen  Itza,  collections  of  pottery  and  other  objects  from 
the  Uloa  Valley  and  Copan,  from  Holmul,  and  from  many  of  the 
ruins  of  Yucatan.  Second  to  none  is  the  unparalleled  collection 
from  the  Sacred  Cenote  of  Chichen  Itza.  This  work  was  planned 
and  financed  almost  entirely  by  Mr.  Bowditch.  The  magnitude 
of  these  collections  can  be  seen  from  the  fact  that  they  now  fill  at 
least  three-fourths  of  two  large  hajls  given  over  to  Mexico  and 
Central  America. 

Mr.  Bowditch's  one  aim  was  the  advance  of  knowledge  of  the 
Maya  field  and  he  always  laid  stress  on  this  rather  than  on  the  ac- 
quisition of  specimens.  He  gave  generously  for  the  publications 
of  the  results  of  the  various  expeditions  to  Central  America.  To 
him  the  Museum  owes  in  greater  part  the  publication  of  the  six: 
folio  volumes  of  its  Memoirs  and  the  following  Papers:  v.  i,  nos.  I, 
3,  and  7;  v.  2;  v.  4,  nos.  1,2,  and  3;  v.  6,  no.  2;  v.  7;  and  v.  9,  all 
of  which  contain  material  pertaining  to  the  Maya  field. 

As  the  grandson  of  Nathaniel  Bowditch  his  mind  ran  to  mathe- 
matics and  his  special  interest  in  Central  America  was  the  study 
of  the  hieroglyphic  inscriptions.  His  pioneer  work  in  this  field  was 
second  only  to  that  of  Goodman  and  Forstemann.  His  acute  mind 
established  many  facts  hitherto  unknown  concerning  the  Maya 
hieroglyphic  writing.  His  unbiased  opinion,  strengthened  by 
most  painstaking  study,  was  brought  to  bear  on  the  many  un- 
settled problems  of  the  hieroglyphic  system.  The  results  of  his 
investigations  are  summed  up  in  his  writings,  a  list  of  which  is 
given  at  the  end  of  this  paper.  Special  mention  should  be  made  of 
his  book,  The  Numeration,  Calendar  Systems,  and  Astronomical- 
Knowledge  of  the  Mayas.  This  work  was  a  landmark  in  the  study 
of  the  Central  American  writing  and  served  to  focus  attention  om 
this  subject  as  no  other  book  had  done.  His  mental  agility  in? 
working  out  the  dates  of  the  inscriptions  and  his  feats  of  rapid 
calculation,  often  done  without  the  aid  of  pencil  and  paper,  were 
always  received  with  wonder  and  admiration  by  his  friends  and 


356  AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGIST  [x.  s.,  23,  1921 

colleagues  in  this  study.  His  writings  were  almost  exclusively 
technical  in  nature  and  served  as  guides  to  the  specialist  on  the 
way  to  a  complete  elucidation  of  the  hieroglyphic  writing. 

Mr.  Bowditch  did  not  read  German  well  and  he  secured  the 
translation  of  practically  the  entire  works  of  Seler,  Forstemann, 
Schellhas,  and  other  German  writers  in  this  field.  Several  of  these 
translations  have  been  published  (P.  M.  Papers,  v.  4,  nos.  I  and  2, 
and  Bulletin  28  of  the  Bureau  of  American  Ethnology).  The 
other  translations  have  been  deposited  in  the  library  of  the  Peabody 
Museum.  His  translation  from  the  Spanish  of  the  Relation  of 
Landa  and  that  of  Avendano  represent  another  line  which  his 
acute  mind  took  in  furthering  the  advance  of  knowledge  of  the 
Central  American  field. 

Another  activity  of  Mr.  Bowditch  in  Maya  studies  was  the 
collection  of  works  and  documents  covering  this  area.  He  built 
up  gradually  one  of  the  best  working  libraries  on  this  subject,  and 
afterwards  gave  it  to  the  Museum.  He  had  the  Nuttall  Codex 
copied  and  published,  the  Laud  Codex  in  the  British  Museum 
copied,  and,  at  the  time  of  his  death,  he  was  having  prepared  a 
copy  of  the  Sahagun  manuscript  in  Florence  with  its  many  colored 
illustrations.  Mr.  William  Gates  kindly  allowed  Mr.  Bowditch  to 
purchase  duplicate  sets  of  the  photographic  reproductions  of  over 
fifty  thousand  pages  of  manuscripts  and  rare  books  on  Central 
America  and  Mexico.  This  comprises  practically  everything  in 
manuscript  form  now  extant  on  the  languages  of  Central  America 
and  much  of  the  material  on  Mexican  linguistics.  These  reproduc- 
tions have  been  bound  and  given  to  the  Museum.  Mr.  Bowditch 
himself  reproduced  the  various  manuscripts  which  he  had  given  to 
the  Museum  as  well  as  several  which  are  in  other  collections. 

No  field  of  activity  was  overlooked.  He  became  the  sponsor  of 
several  Fellowships.  The  first  Fellowship  in  American  Archaeology 
of  the  Archaeological  Institute  of  America  as  well  as  the  Central 
American  Fellowship  of  the  Peabody  Museum  were  given  by  him. 
He  was  in  great  part  responsible  for  the  establishment  of  the  Divis- 
ion of  Anthropology  in  Harvard  University  and  an  Instructorship 
in  Central  American  Archaeology  was  first  established  by  him. 


CHARLES   PICKERING   BOW  DITCH  357 

Instruction  in  this  subject  has  been  carried  on  by  Harvard  since 
1905. 

As  one  of  the  Founders  of  the  American  Anthropological  Asso- 
ciation, Mr.  Bowditch  was  a  generous  supporter  of  the  cause  of 
Anthropology  in  America.  His  ready  response  could  always  be 
depended  upon  for  overcoming  deficits  and  for  advice.  There  is 
perhaps  no  other  instance  in  American  Anthropology  where  an 
effort  in  one  field  of  interest  has  been  so  long  continued,  so  intense, 
and  so  productive  of  results.  His  monument  is  the  Central  Ameri- 
can collections  in  the  Peabody  Museum,  its  Maya  publications, 
and  its  remarkable  collection  of  books  and  manuscripts  on  Middle 
America.  This  monument  will  continue  to  increase  in  size  as  his 
generous  interest  in  the  Museum  will  be  reflected  in  future  activities 
in  the  Maya  field. 

Mr.  Bowditch  was  a  man  of  very  strong  personality.  He  tried 
to  carry  out  the  letter  of  the  law  and  expected  others  to  do  so. 
Forceful  but  modest,  always  with  opinions  but  willing  to  reason, 
wrathful  before  underhandedness  but  just  to  -all,  Mr.  Bowditch 
will  be  remembered  by  his  colleagues  as  one  of  the  greatest  friends 
of  the  science  and  one  who  tried  to  uphold  its  highest  traditions. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 
PUBLISHED  WORKS 

1900  The  Lords  of  the  Night  and  the  Tonalamatl  of  the  Codex  Borbonicus, 

in  American  Anthropologist,  (n.s.)  v.  2,  pp.  145-154. 

Review  of  John  Campbell's  "Decipherment  of  the  Hieroglyphic  Inscrip- 
tions of  Central  America,"  in  American  Anthropologist,  (n.s.)  v.  2,  pp. 
741-745. 

1901  Memoranda  on  the  Maya  Calendars  used  in  the  Books  of  Chilam  Balam,  in 

American  Anthropologist,  (n.s.)  v.  3,  pp.  129-138. 
The  Age  of  the  Maya  Ruins,  in  American  Anthropologist,  (n.s.)  v.  3,  pp. 

697-700. 
A  Method  which  may  have  been  used  by  the  Mayas  in  calculating  Time, 

Cambridge,  8°,  pamph.  II  pp. 
Was  the  beginning  Day  of  the  Maya  Month  numbered  Zero  (or  twenty) 

or  one?,  Cambridge,  8°,  pamph.  8  pp. 
Notes  on  the  Report  of  Teobert  Maler  in  Memoirs  of  the  Peabody  Museum, 

Vol.  n,  No.  i ;  Cambridge,  8°,  pamph.  30  pp. 


358  AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGIST  [N.  s.f  23,  1921 

1903     A  suggestive  Maya  Inscription,  Cambridge,  8°,  pamph.  16  pp. 

Notes  on  the  Report  of  Teobert  Maler  in  Memoirs  of  the  Peabody  Museum, 

Vol.  II,  No.  2,  Cambridge,  8°,  pamph.  29  pp. 
1906     The  Temples  of  the  Cross,  of  the  Foliated  Cross  and  of  the  Sun  at  Palenque, 

Cambridge,  8°,  pamph.  II  pp.,  3  tables. 
Mayan  Nomenclature,  Cambridge,  8°,  pamph.  II  pp. 

1908  Collation   of   Berendt's   Lengua    Maya.     Miscelanea,    v.   2,    in    Berendt 

Linguistic     Collection,     No.     43.     (Photographic    reproduction    by 
William  Gates.) 

Collation  of  Berendt's  Chilam  Balam,  in  Berendt  Linguistic  Collection, 
No.  49.     (Photographic  reproduction  by  William  Gates.) 

1909  The  Dates  and  Numbers  of  Pages  24  and  26  to  50  of  the  Dresden  Codex, 

in  Putnam  Anniversary  Volume,  New  York,  pp.  268-298. 

1910  The  Numeration,  Calendar  Systems  and  Astronomical  Knowledge  of  the 

Mayas,  Cambridge,  8°,  xvii,  340  pp.,  xix  pis. 

UNPUBLISHED  WORKS 

Discussion  of  pages  3id~32d,  62,  and  64  of  the  Dresden  Codex,  4°,  MS.  37  ff. 
4  Ahau  8  cumhu.     What  position  does  this  date  hold  in  the  Maya  reckoning  of 

time?,  4°,  MS.  4  ff.,  tables. 

Cardinal  point  symbols,  colors,  etc.,  4°,  MS.  25  ff. 
Dr.  Seler's  59-day  period,  4°,  MS.  8  ff. 

TRANSLATIONS 

List  of  Maya  words  in  Landa  and  elsewhere  with  translation,  4°,  MS.  17  ff. 

Landa's  Relacion  de  las  cosas  de  Yucatan.  Translation  from  the  French  edition 
of  Brasseur  de  Bourbourg  and  corrected  from  the  Spanish  edition  of  Rada  y 
Delgado,  4°,  MS.  i6off. 

Avendano's  Relacion  de  las  dos  entradas  que  hize  a  Peten  Itza.  Translation  into 
English.  (Published  in  large  part  in  Means's  History  of  the  Spanish  Con- 
quest of  Yucatan  and  of  the  Itzas,  in  Papers  of  the  Peabody  Museum,  v.  7, 
Cambridge,  1917.) 

Villagutierre's  Historia  de  la  Conquista  de  la  Provincia  de  el  Itza,  1701.  Transla- 
tion of  Books  n,  in,  v,  vm,  ix. 

Lizana's  Historia  de  Yucatan,  1633.     Translation  of  Chaps.  1-6. 

Alonzo  Cano's  Manche  and  Peten.  MS,  1696.  Translation.  (Published  in 
large  part  in  Means's  History  of  the  Spanish  Conquest  of  Yucatan  and  of  the 
Itzas,  in  Papers  of  the  Peabody  Museum,  v.  7,  Cambridge,  1917.) 

EDITORIAL  WORK 

1904  Mexican  and  Central  American  Antiquities,  Calendar  Systems,  and 
History.  Twenty-four  papers  by  Seler,  Forstemann,  Schellhas, 
Sapper,  and  Dieseldorff,  in  Bulletin  28,  Bureau  of  American  Ethnology, 
Washington,  8°,  682  pp.,  XLIX  pis. 


CHARLES    PICKERING   BOWDITCH  359 

Representation  of  Deities  of  the  Maya  Manuscripts  by  Paul  Schellhas, 

in  Papers  of  the  Peabody  Museum,  Vol.  4,  No.  I,  Cambridge. 
1906     Commentary  on  the  Maya  Manuscript  in  the  Royal  Public  Library  of 
Dresden  by  Ernst  Forstemann,  in  Papers  of  the  Peabody  Museum,  Vol. 
4,  No.  2,  Cambridge. 

PHOTOSTATIC  REPRODUCTIONS 
Diccionario    Pocomchi-Castellano    y    Castellano-Pocomchi    de    San    Cristobal 

Cahcoh.     MS.  in  Berendt  Linguistic  Collection,  No.  61. 
Doctrina  en  Lengua  Quiche.     MS.  owned  by  Marshall  H.  Saville. 
Maldonado  de  Matos.    Arte  de  la  Lengua  Szinca,  1770.    MS.  in  Peabody  Museum. 
Alonso  Martinez.     Manuel  breve  y  compendioso  para  enpesar  a  aprender  Lengua 

Zapoteca.     MS.  in  John  Carter  Brown  Library. 

A  Mexican  Catechism  in  Testerian  Hieroglyphs.     MS.  in  Peabody  Museum. 
Platicas  de  la  historia  sagrada  en  Lengua  Cacchii.     XVII  century  MS.  in  Berendt 

Linguistic  Collection,  No.  79. 

Quaderno  de  Idioma  Zapoteco  de  Valle.     MS.  in  John  Carter  Brown  Library. 
Sermones  en  la  Lengua  Kekchi  de  Cajabon.     MS.  in  Peabody  Museum. 
Vocabulario  de  Lengua  Kiche.     1787  copy.     MS.  in  Peabody  Museum. 
Xiu  Chronicles  or  Libro  de  Probanzas,  1608-1817.     MS.  in  Peabody  Museum. 

ALFRED  M.  TOZZER. 

PEABODY  MUSEUM, 
CAMBRIDGE,  MASS. 


BOOK  REVIEWS 

METHODS   AND    PRINCIPLES 

A    Laboratory    Manual    of    Anthropometry.     HARRIS    H.    WILDER.     P. 

Blakiston's  Son  &  Co.:    Philadelphia,  1920.     193  pp.,  43  ills. 

This  book  of  two  hundred  pages,  opens  with  the  sentence: 
It  has  long  been  a  reproach  to  American  science  that  now,  for  many  years,  the 
branch  of  Physical  Anthropology  has  been  so  little  cultivated,  and  this  the  more 
because  of  our  early  prestige  in  this  very  field  and  because  of  our  unrivalled  oppor- 
tunities. ...  It  was  with  a  view  to  directing  a  broader  American  attention  to 
this  vitally  important  branch  of  Anthropology  that  the  author  .  .  .  drew  up, 
based  largely  upon  the  prescription  of  1906,  a  set  of  rules  for  the  guidance  of  the 
laboratory  student  .  .  . 

The  intention  of  publishing  a  book  on  anthropometry  in  America  is  to 
be  lauded,  even  though  rules  for  measuring  have  been  published  re- 
peatedly in  American  journals  (see:  Wilder,  in  Science,  LIII,  p.  20). 
Wilder's  manual  will,  no  doubt,  help  to  stimulate  anthropometric  work 
and  will  be  especially  of  assistance  in  college  courses  on  anthropology. 
The  student  receives  from  it  guidance  as  to  what  and  how  to  measure 
both  the  outer  body  and  the  skeletal  parts  of  man,  becomes  acquainted 
with  the  chief  anthropometric  instruments,  and  learns  what  absolute 
measurements  can  to  advantage  be  combined  to  form  indices.  The 
technical  instructions  are  in  parts  enlivened  by  examples  of  the  results 
of  measurements  taken  on  different  races. 

From  a  critical  point  of  view,  however,  a  perusal  of  the  manual 
leaves  an  impression  of  a  certain  unevenness  and  partiality  in  the  arrange- 
ment and  selection  as  well  as  the  illustration  of  the  text.  The  subject 
matter  is  divided  into  osteometry,  comprising  114  pages,  and  somatom- 
etry,  to  which  only  16  pages  are  devoted,  a  disproportion  which  seems 
hardly  justifiable.  The  scanty  bibliography  (in  footnotes),  which  is 
intended  as  an  introduction  to  the  literature  on  anthropometry,  omits  in 
many  instances  very  important  publications  while  giving  certain  special- 
ized papers  of  no  general  interest.  In  the  part  on  "biometric"  methods, 
which  might  more  correctly  be  called  "statistical"  methods,  one  fails 
to  find  any  mention  of  the  correlation  coefficient,  which  is  as  important 
as  the  coefficient  of  variation.  Also  the  formulae  for  the  various  probable 
errors  should  have  been  included  in  this  discussion.  The  lengthy 
chapter  on  craniometry  would  gain  in  value  by  a  short  enumeration  of 

360 


